Pete Croatto, Film Roundup, July 2014

An ICON contributor since 2006, Pete Croatto also writes movie reviews for The Weekender. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Broadway.com, Grantland, Philadelphia, Publishers Weekly, and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @PeteCroatto.

Sebastian Junger, Kornegal.

Yves Saint Laurent (Dir: Jalil Lespert). Starring: Pierre Niney, Guillaume Gallienne, Charlotte Le Bon, Laura Smet, Marie de Villepin. Doddering, scattered biography of the titular fashion icon focuses on the years 1957 to 1976. That’s when Saint Laurent (Niney) evolved from shy, young Christian Dior exile to boutique darling to jittery, hedonistic creative genius with a love for cocaine and disco nights. YSL shared this volatile period with his no nonsense business partner/lover, Pierre Berge (Gallienne), who serves as the movie’s distracting part-time narrator. Lespert does the showy stuff well—the lovers’ tantrums, the angry sex, the runway shows—but Lespert’s focus is aggravatingly absent. Is his movie about the contentious relationship between two headstrong men, a delicate genius’s chaotic rise to power, or the rise of a legendary brand name? I honestly don’t know, and that indecisiveness dooms the picture. Yves Saint Laurent is easy to look at it, for sure, but it’s oh so hard to care about. In French with English subtitles. ★★ [R]

Korengal  (Dir: Sebastian Junger). Restrepo, the documentary directed by journalist Junger (The Perfect Storm) and the late photographer Tim Hetherington, covered a year in the life of the Second Platoon in Afghanistan’s dangerous Korengal Valley. In this sequel, which employs interviews with soldiers during and after their tour, the young men explain the less glamorous aspects of fighting a war: what it feels like to be in a gun fight (exhilarating, actually), their uneasy relationship with the villagers, the boredom of living with the same people day after endless day. Korengal is direct, no-frills, and positively riveting. By keeping the approach simple, the subjects’ thoughts slap you in the face. And the studio interviews—shot in close-up—allow us to see the burdens these young men carry. These guys look gaunt and haunted, even though many are probably college age. An unknown cost lingers behind the everyday life of men and women in combat. ★★★1/2 [R]   

A Coffee in Berlin (Dir: Jan Ole Gerster). Starring: Tom Schilling, Friederike Kempter, Marc Hosemann, Ulrich Noethen. At turns absurd, sentimental, and whimsical, Gerster’s coming-of-age tale tracks aimless law school dropout Niko Fischer (Schilling) as he gains and loses perspective during a frenetically eventful day that has him crisscrossing modern-day Berlin. “I don’t understand a word of what people are saying anymore,” says Niko, only half-joking. With its flighty young protagonist and black and white cinematography, it’s easy to call this Frances Ha for guys. It’s also a lazy comparison. Noah Baumbach’s delightful 2013 film showed a girl’s journey away from life’s kiddie table. A Coffee in Berlin, with tenderness and blunt honesty, traces a young man’s dawning realization that he must do something, anything. The world will go on without him. He has to decide if he wants to keep up. This is required viewing for anyone about to enter adulthood—and everyone else, for that matter. Also known as Oh Boy. In German with English subtitles. ★★★★ [NR]

Obvious Child (Dir: Gillian Robespierre). Starring: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann, Gabe Liedman, Richard Kind, Polly Draper, David Cross. Part of this month’s young adult travails double bill with A Coffee in Berlin. In Brooklyn, struggling comedian-actress Donna Stern (Slate, TV’s Parks and Recreation) gets dumped by her douchey boyfriend, beginning a lousy run that stars self-loathing and imminent unemployment. There’s a break in the misery when she hooks up with a strikingly handsome nice guy (Lacy, who looks a slice of Wonder Bread with eyes), only she ends up pregnant. Getting an abortion is an easy decision for Donna. Trying to start a relationship with her unraveling life and this burdensome secret? Excruciating. Writer-director Robespierre smart, funny script neither demonizes nor celebrates Donna’s pending act. It is simply the center of a young woman’s maturation. That stance gives Obvious Child a mature sweetness that it wouldn’t get by shaking its principles for the camera. Real people—Slate and Lacy are wonderful, by the way—face real problems. That’s it, that’s all. ★★★★ [R]